Northwest History. State History box 62. Electrical Research and Experiments.

DUSTTNTLOSET
YIELDSRADIUM
$600 Tube, Size of Phonograph
Needle Found by Device
Made at W. S. C.
WASHINGTON STATE COLLEGE,
PULLMAN, Dec. 12.—Hunting tor the
proverbial needle in a haystack is
simple compared with the problem
faced recently by the members of the
Washington State college physics department, called in to locate a tube of
radium the size of a phonograph
needle, worth $600 and loaded with
death for any one who might innocently come into prolonged contact
with it.
Two tubes became lost while being
transferred from one Lewiston hospital to another. A hasty search revealed one tube on the floor of a hall.
Something had to be done quickly to
find the other, as there was the danger that some person might pick up
the material on his shoes or clothing
and carry it for days, with sure
painful death as a result.
An insurance company at Spokane
asked the physics department if it
had a machine that could locate
radium? The department did not, but
it would make one.
Working at top speed and using
only simple materials, they soon
structed an electroscope, which
sembles an ashcan with a large cake
tin on top. Radium gives itself away
by increasing the electrical conductivity
in the neighboring air and the
increase is detected by a gold leaf
device in the electroscope.
Carrying their "ashcan," the searchers started down the halls of the hospital
For a time there were no results.
Then the gold leaf detector
said "warmer," "cold," "warmer"
"cold," then "hot," in front of a closet.
Inside the closet, in the dust on the
bottom of a box, lay the $600 tube
radium.

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DUSTTNTLOSET
YIELDSRADIUM
$600 Tube, Size of Phonograph
Needle Found by Device
Made at W. S. C.
WASHINGTON STATE COLLEGE,
PULLMAN, Dec. 12.—Hunting tor the
proverbial needle in a haystack is
simple compared with the problem
faced recently by the members of the
Washington State college physics department, called in to locate a tube of
radium the size of a phonograph
needle, worth $600 and loaded with
death for any one who might innocently come into prolonged contact
with it.
Two tubes became lost while being
transferred from one Lewiston hospital to another. A hasty search revealed one tube on the floor of a hall.
Something had to be done quickly to
find the other, as there was the danger that some person might pick up
the material on his shoes or clothing
and carry it for days, with sure
painful death as a result.
An insurance company at Spokane
asked the physics department if it
had a machine that could locate
radium? The department did not, but
it would make one.
Working at top speed and using
only simple materials, they soon
structed an electroscope, which
sembles an ashcan with a large cake
tin on top. Radium gives itself away
by increasing the electrical conductivity
in the neighboring air and the
increase is detected by a gold leaf
device in the electroscope.
Carrying their "ashcan," the searchers started down the halls of the hospital
For a time there were no results.
Then the gold leaf detector
said "warmer," "cold," "warmer"
"cold," then "hot," in front of a closet.
Inside the closet, in the dust on the
bottom of a box, lay the $600 tube
radium.